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Pope not about to ditch celibacy By MAndlA ZiBi
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A full moon shines its light on the Sea of Galilee, seen from the Benedictine pilgrims’ inn Pilgerhaus at Tabgha. See page 10 for Günther Simmermacher’s travelogue of the Sea of Galilee and the Pilgerhaus, where the Southern Cross pilgrims with Archbishop William Slattery will stay in August. (Photo: Günther Simmermacher)
OPE Francis clearly was not thinking about “abolishing” obligatory clerical celibacy in the Latin-rite Church when he made comments on the crisis of vocations in an interview with a German newspaper, a local analyst has said. Fr Anthony Egan SJ of the Jesuit Institute of South Africa said although clerical celibacy is “not Church doctrine but a discipline”, there are “very practical” reasons for it. But contrary to widespread headlines, the pope was not talking about it in his interview with Die Zeit. Pope Francis said it was time the Church started to think about ordaining married men to minister in remote communities facing a lack of priests. He stressed that removing obligatory celibacy is not the solution to the vocations crisis, but said he was open to studying whether “viri probati”—married men of proven faith—could be ordained. “We have to study whether ‘viri probati’ are a possibility. We then also need to determine which tasks they could take on, such as in remote communities, for example,” Pope Francis told Die Zeit. Two Brazilian bishops have requested ‘viri probati’ priests for large areas of the Amazon, where communities live for years without the Eucharist. “The pope is thinking aloud about extending the possibility of ordination to married men, Fr Egan said. “He is opening up the debate, but [what he said] is really nothing new.” Fr Egan noted that the idea has been debated since Vatican II, and even Pope Benedict XVI had explored it in the Synod of Bishops in 2005. “But it is not a theological issue, only a question of when the Church develops the will to do it.” The Jesuit noted that in the first centuries of Christianity there were married priests, but from around the early middle ages the practice of celibacy was consolidated in the West. He said it was “quite possible” to have “viri probati” priests in the not so distant future. “I also think that a lot of people will be shocked and resistant to the idea. But it all comes down to whether you want a priest or not, however uneasy you are,” he said. “For our part of the world, these priests would be an intelligent and viable solution to the problem of shortage. From a cultural perspective—where men wish to enjoy family life while also ministering to the Church—it could bring together the needs of Church with the needs of the community,” he said.
The concept of “viri probati” priests in the context of the modern Church was developed in several books by a South African bishop.
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ishop Fritz Lobinger, retired of Aliwal North, envisaged such priests operating as “Teams of Elders” in regions were their ministry would be needed. “Such proven local lay leaders have emerged in thousands of priestless communities all over the world but especially in the southern hemisphere,” Bishop Lobinger, who now resides in Mariannhill, told The Southern Cross. “When such communities could not have Mass on Sunday and could not find a priest for conducting funerals they did not ask just one local, well-acceptable lay person to conduct lay religious services as a kind of substitute for the priest. Rather, they formed always a group of proven local lay leaders for these tasks, and this has spontaneously become a widespread pattern. On Sundays the people saw three lay leaders leading the service,” he explained. He stressed that the “teams of elders” were not meant to change the present form of priesthood but “to put a second, different, complementary one next to it.” There would be several important differences between the two kinds of priests. “The teams of elders would remain in their civil profession and do priestly work only in their spare time. They would remain with their families where they have proven to be good husbands and family fathers over many years. They would do priestly work only in the communities where they worked as lay leaders. They could not be transferred.” They would work only as teams, to avoid overburdening them, and if one of them had to leave and stay somewhere else the community would not be greatly affected. Their training would be in the form of evening classes and weekend courses, not in a seminary like full-time priests, and their work would complement that of full-time priests. “The teams of elders will not replace the consecrated priests. The present full-time priests will continue to concentrate on coordinating the ten or 20 communities they are already serving and on giving ongoing formation to the hundreds of lay leaders and the already ordained teams of elders,” said Bishop Lobinger. He admitted that at first glance the model “seemed difficult to introduce”, but he argued that in fact, “thousands of the big parishes in Continued on page 3
S outher n C ross Pilgrimage HOLY LAND • ROME •ASSISI • CAIRO 25 Aug - 8 Sept 2017 • Led by Archbishop William Slattery OFM For more information or to book, please contact Gail info@fowlertours.co.za or 076 352-3809
www.fowlertours.co.za/slattery